I find proper business etiquette to be like family dinners, politics and religion are not subjects to be brought up. As a manager I've sent people home for wearing political t-shirts even though everyone else in my little non-profit world agreed with them. It's not appropriate.

Is the relative covered under your policy. Brass tacks - Honor comes to who is paying the bill (read deduction from one's paycheck).  If its from yours - opinion definitely matters.  If it is from your kin - s/his matters.  If it is from the Government Teat - then its all of our opinion.

Any which way - Scream.

Asking them to change the station is rude, asking them to turn it down is not.

pALEPHx wrote:

Once, in college, I shared a bag of shrooms with a female friend who had never done hallucinogens before. I basically did the whole eighth by myself and she got the dust and the dregs. Less than an hour later, she was in the shower, running hot and cold water and demanding that it be out of her. This required calling campus security AND a separate ambulance to take her to the closest hospital, which was religiously affiliated.

I had to disturb a friend in class to have him drive me to the Emergency Room, where we were made to wait while my friend was attended to, an experience which surely outweighed the drugs in its unpleasantry. Basically, I was trippin' balls and stuck someplace with police cars, ambulances, and prayers coming in over the speakers at regular intervals.

Despite being told that she had ingested psilocybin instead of mushrooms off a pizza, their solution was to shove her full of activated charcoal, even though the drug had obviously permeated her system. I decided I'd had enough of waiting in a room decorated with saints and beat it the fuck outta there, leaving her money for a cab back to campus when she came down. They wouldn't let me in to see her anyway, and the attending backed away from me the moment he saw the size of my pupils.

You can't choose your healthcare venues, unless you're rich and can make such decisions to go farther or get better care something more secular. It's enough to voice your opinion about the choice of music selection, but it's really very small potatoes compared to what actually needs to be done in the first place. If your company was too deaf to hear, then it really didn't matter and you should have just read a magazine. Godsknow, I couldn't have managed even that, at the time.

Oh man I feel you, dog.

When I was 19 and my ex was preggo with my first child, some idiot ran a red light and totaled her car doing 40. Spun her car around 6 times up a 8 foot embankment. She had to climb out the passenger side, then chased the driver around both cars (while his wife was unconscious in the front seat) while she was 6 months pregnant. She kept yelling (even after police showed up) "If my baby dies, my husband will hunt you and your entire family down like a pack of dogs!!!".

She was pissed, to say the least.

Whilst here I sit, at home, having just ingested mass quantities of LSD,  the phone rings from St. Francis hospital... Not only was the drive there quite interesting, St Francis features nuns... tons of nuns... nuns EVERYWHERE!!!

I almost feel a flashback coming on every time I see a nun. What made it even worse, was, my freaking mom was there BY PURE COINCIDENCE, having a sleep study done. So I got to sit and chat with mom, 2 hours into my trip, while waiting to hear that baby was ok....

not so good times... In the future, I waited till everyone was in the safe house before starting the party.

I so know exactly how you felt. Cops, nuns, flashy lights, sick people, the whole goddamn nightmare.

You get yourself all worked up because you happened to hear a opinion not coinciding with your own? Wow. How many years of therapy will it take you to get over it and convince you that everyone thinks like you do?

orangeplus wrote:

I was arrested after ingesting a heroic dose of LSD and ecstacy (circa 1989) but before it had come on. The arrest was not drug related and no one involved realized there was wrong with me. I got through booking and everything ok, but once I got into the cell I wedged my shoulders in the corner of the cell and gripped the edges of the bunk and just held on for dear life for 4 or 5 hours. Luckily there was a guy there who had been beaten up by his wife and charged on domestic abuse who regaled me with the stories of his very odd life.

awesome...

My brother, who turned me on to L, use to get me good n spun and then take me walking around Broadripple (a hang-out artsy area of Indy) at night. One night, we walked up to this cop and said, "sir, can I take a picture of you with my brother?" and proceeded to push me over to the cop and whip out the camera.

not funny but sure taught me how to behave around the law....

GooberMcNutly wrote:

You get yourself all worked up because you happened to hear a opinion not coinciding with your own? Wow. How many years of therapy will it take you to get over it and convince you that everyone thinks like you do?

I know that many people don’t share my views, but I don’t go to their homes, businesses or churches and rub their faces in it or try to convert them.  Also, I’m not a tax-exempt charity like many of these so-called churches and religious organizations that are more political than religious. 

Lets contrast the doctor who pissed me off with my primary care physician.  You can’t help but notice he is Jewish.  His name (it might as well be Dr. Mordicai Goldmezuzahberg), his New York Jewish accent, and his Kazar features all make it obvious.  However, I have no idea which brand of Judaism he subscribes to if any.  I’ve never heard the words “Israel” or “murderous Palestinian Goyim” in his office.  I have no idea whether he is a liberal or conservative.  I know that Judaism isn’t a missionary religion, but if it were this man would not subject his patients to conversion attempts.  His staff are all Goys and Shiksas who may belong to a flying saucer cult for all I know. This is how it should be.  Even though he is an obvious Jew, I am not forced to hear about it.

Last edited by fnord (2009-02-14 15:54:20)

Actually I side with Fnord on this one.  Unless you're an obviously religiously-affiliated business (here in the South they just put a christian fish on the sign.  I generally avoid them, as William Burroughs said, "If you're doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.") you've got no business trying to indoctrinate your customer base.  It's just bad business.

My first reaction was kind of like, whatever, you're lucky to have health care at all, relax, but born agains do  kind of bug me. I'd have just mentioned I couldn't wait to have my elderly relative's ___ clear up so I could get her that pentagram tattoo like she'd been wanting.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

Yeah, I was at the Home Depot the other day and the easy listening soft rock was really driving me crazy. It was oppressive. So I asked the store manager to play some of my Danzig, but she totally wouldn't. Fascist!

And then I went down to my favorite coffee shop and right there on the table when I sat down were a bunch of church newspapers! Can you believe it? It's like they are trying to brainwash me.

Good thing I have like 100 bumper stickers on the back of my truck to make sure that people know where I am coming from.

Sheesh.

Hey, you're free to play whatever shit you want, provided you don't mind pissing off and possibly losing customers.